Tower Transit establishes study grants and awards for SUSS students

From 2020, Tower Transit Singapore will provide study grants to enhance financial support for students of the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), with special consideration for those from the public transport sector. The public bus operator will also sponsor Convocation Awards for the top graduands in each cohort of the SUSS’s Master of Management (Urban Transportation) programme.

PUBLISHED November 05, 2019

Joint Media Release

Tower Transit establishes study grants and awards for SUSS students

Study Grants with priority for those from public transport sector

Total of $25,000 in undergraduate study grants and postgraduate awards to benefit SUSS students

SINGAPORE, 5 November 2019 – From 2020, Tower Transit Singapore will provide study grants to enhance financial support for students of the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), with special consideration for those from the public transport sector. The public bus operator will also sponsor Convocation Awards for the top graduands in each cohort of the SUSS’s Master of Management (Urban Transportation) programme.

In total, Tower Transit will donate $25,000 in study grants and awards, which will benefit about 40 undergraduates and graduands of the Master’s programme.

“The combination of undergraduate study grants and postgraduate awards allows us to contribute to the upskilling of a wide spectrum of people working in the transport industry, from worker level to leader level,” said Winston Toh, Managing Director of Tower Transit Singapore.

Tower Transit Study Grant

Beginning in 2020, four Tower Transit Study Grants will be disbursed to financially needy students each year for five years. SUSS students with a monthly per capita income of less than $2,250, pursuing any part-time undergraduate programme at SUSS and who are in good academic standing will be eligible to apply for the grant.

Students who work in the public transport industry or whose parents are public transport workers will be given special consideration.

Commenting on the Tower Transit Study Grants, Mr Toh said, “As a public transport operator, our business is about providing physical mobility. Through the Tower Transit Study Grants, we hope to contribute in a small way to the social mobility of those who need it most.”

“Many of our public transport workers may have missed out on further education in their youth. By giving them special consideration, we can help them continue their learning, or help them give their children the opportunity they didn’t have,” he added.

Tower Transit Awards

The first Tower Transit Awards were presented to Kwek Swee Cheng and Lim Chun Yu by President Halimah Yacob at the Convocation of the Class of 2019 on 9 October 2019. Both winners had graduated from the Master of Management (Urban Transportation) programme at the top of their class.

Mr Kwek, who won the Tower Transit Gold Award with a cash prize of $1,000, has been with the Singapore Army for 36 years and is Lead Engineer in the Maintenance & Engineering Support Formation. Mr Lim, a deputy project manager with the Land Transport Authority, was conferred the Tower Transit Silver Award with a cash prize of $800.

SUSS’s flexible learning approach allowed both Mr Kwek and Mr Lim to complete their programmes despite having to juggle the demands of graduate studies, family and full-time jobs. Mr Lim also had the responsibility of raising two young children with his wife who gave birth to twins just after he completed the Master’s programme.

A total of $15,000 in Tower Transit Awards will be given out over six years.

Professor Cheong Hee Kiat, President of SUSS, said, “Providing flexible applied learning pathways that are learner-centric is SUSS’s core belief. In these changing times, there is an even greater need for our workforce to be constantly learning, and upskilling. We are grateful to Tower Transit for its generosity and support, and we look forward to fostering a strong partnership through our faculty and students.”

Tower Transit is an innovative passenger transport operator with fresh ideas and an expertise in bus franchising. We work with governments to bring safe, clean, reliable and efficient bus services to key cities. Established in the UK in 2013, Tower Transit operates some of the busiest bus routes in central London on behalf of the Mayor and Transport for London (TfL). In 2015, competing with some of the world’s biggest bus operators, Tower Transit was awarded the Singapore government’s first competitively-tendered bus operations contract. Tower Transit Singapore operates 29 bus services and a fleet of 367 buses. For more information, please visit www.towertransit.sg.

About Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS)

SUSS is a university with a rich heritage in providing lifelong, learner-centric and industry-relevant education. Our mission is to champion lifelong education to develop future thinkers and leaders to their fullest potential through our 3H’s education philosophy–Head for professional competency with applied knowledge, ‘Heart for social awareness of the needs of the society, and ‘Habit’ for passion towards lifelong learning.

We offer more than 70 undergraduate and graduate programmes, available in full- and part-time study modes which are flexible, modular and multi-faceted in learning experience to cater to both fresh school leavers and adult learners. We also launched a broad range of continuing education and training modular courses for the professional skills and knowledge upgrading of our workforce.

Our programmes and courses are made available through our five schools:

S R Nathan School of Human Development

School of Business

School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences

School of Law

School of Science and Technology

To date, over 30,000 graduates have chosen SUSS as their university of choice. Each year, about 15,000 students are pursuing their full- and part-time studies with us.

From 1 April 2019, the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL) became an autonomous institute of SUSS. Both entities enable a synergistic collaboration as IAL brings to SUSS its expertise and experience in adult learning and Continuing Education and Training (CET), while SUSS provides an ecosystem of resources and experts rooted in academic rigour.